FEATURED SHOP OF THE MONTH
AUGUST 2022
CHICAGO
MUSIC STORE
What guitar shop can proudly claim three generations of family ownership for over a century, while being voted Best Music Store by the readers of the Tucson Weekly for 12 years in a row, and is known for selling six Martin guitars to Johnny Cash, a Guild bass to Sheryl Crow, a bunch of Hondo Longhorn guitars to Alabama, several boxes of gear to Billy Gibbons, and hand delivering a Yamaha guitar to Styx for a stadium concert?
The one and only Chicago Music Store in Tucson, Arizona!
The shop was opened in 1919 by Clara Levkowitz, who moved with her family from Chicago to Tucson and started the Chicago Store, a dry goods general business, named in her hometown’s honor (as people did back then), with the slogan “We buy sell and trade anything of value.”

The shop thrived, and in the 1950s and 1960s, two of Clara’s sons took over the business. Under Phil and Joe’s ownership, the shop shifted its focus towards instruments, and soon became dealers of guitars including Fender, Martin, Yamaha, Eastman, Cordoba, Peavey, Guild, Jackson, and Recording King. Chicago Store officially changed its name to Chicago Music Store in 1973.
Mark Levkowitz, Joe’s son and Clara Levkowitz’s grandson, has been going to the Chicago Store since he was in diapers, officially began working there as a teenager, and has owned the shop since 2017. He continues to carry on the family’s mission to help musicians make music while encouraging the next generation of musicians in the Tucson community.



